Introduction

New Perspectives on the GDR

A Plea for a Paradigm Shift

Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Ane a Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus i

t took some time in the (pre-unifi cation) Federal Republic of Germany for Inot only researchers but also educators, museums, and memorial policy- makers to begin asking critical questions. But there have been debates about National Socialism and its a ereff ects since 1945. What started hesitatingly and then assumed increasing clarity and importance were questions about how many people were involved in criminal acts; the successes or failures of denazifi cation; the comprehensiveness of compensation for Nazi wrongdoing; whether every victim group had been recognized; and whether the state and its citizens were meeting their material and moral obligations to Israel, among other issues. At fi rst tentatively and then with increasing urgency, historians and other researchers—through their investigations and the ensuing public debate—completed the work initiated by the Allies at the Nuremberg Trials and the twelve tribunals that followed. Critical inquiry on the a ereff ects of National Socialism but also ear- lier periods in German history, including colonialism, continue. Whether football, the secret service, antisemitism, medicine, or immigration policy, no institution, phenomenon, subject, or concept should be excluded from critical scrutiny. The destruction of law and civilization and the establish- ment of megalomaniacal nationalism, racism, antisemitism, and other movements opposed to minorities and modernity as such demand that

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the Federal Republic of Germany repeatedly address these legacies as long as it wishes to remain a democracy. Its democratic culture is nurtured in signifi cant ways by the ability to pose questions of this nature.

The GDR: Soviet-Style Dictatorship and Post–National Socialist Society

The impetus for this book comes from our belief that critical questions about the a ereff ects of National Socialism and other chapters in Ger- many’s past, such as colonialism, are most defi nitely relevant beyond the rupture of 1945, not least with regard to the German Democratic Republic (GDR), its political system, foreign policy, society, culture, and everyday life. Researchers and publishers have addressed these issues, but not in the depth and breadth presented in this book. In various ways, the contributors here wrestle with precisely how denazifi cation was addressed, in what manner Nazis were excluded from or integrated into the GDR, how antisemitism cultivated by National Socialism was eradicated or persisted, and how surviving Nazi victims were compensated or not. It asks how communists deployed their history as victims of Nazi persecution to legitimize a new dictatorship, whether anti- fascism was underpinned by antisemitism, and whether antifascism and denazifi cation can lay claim to a lasting contribution to the democratization of the Federal Republic of Germany. These questions have not yet received systematic analytical a ention. Today, journalists, schools, museums, and memorials have some catching up to do, given that the GDR and other “Soviet-style dictatorships” (Mlynar 1982–1989) did not adequately address National Socialism and its a ereff ects. The extermination of European Jews, the mass murder of Sinti and Roma, and the war of pillage and extermination against the Soviet Union were only mentioned in the context of preserving the power of ruling elites and their ideological alliances in the GDR and other societies of the former Soviet Bloc. The o en heroic communist and noncommunist resistance to Nazi Germany’s policies and allies, the Warsaw ghe o insurrection of 1943, and the uprising led by the Polish Home Army in 1944 were equally neglected. Indeed, the a ereff ects of National Socialism and its historical ante- cedents were clearly observable in the satellite states of the Soviet Union until its dissolution. Large numbers of Nazi victims were never recog- nized, received no compensation, and faced persecution once again, while Nazi perpetrators were never held to account. The persistence of antisemi- tism, racism, homophobia, and antiziganism was conspicuous. Engaging

AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 2 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Introduction with origins and causes was possible only within strictly enforced limits. As closed societies, the communist SED state and other Soviet-style dic- tatorships that defi ned themselves as socialist were unwilling and unable to confront these problems and to allow public discussion and, with it, potential controversy (Amadeu Antonio Foundation 2010).

The GDR: Demonization, Limits of Discourse, and Germany’s History of Suffering

This book makes a plea for a more intensive, systematic focus on the SED state as one of three successor societies to National Socialism (Bergmann, Erb, and Lichtblau 1995). It is also—but by no means exclusively—a plea for the rediscovery of history as a method of ideological critique. The SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) legitimized the existence of the GDR by adopting a highly idiosyncratic view of German history. Its narratives revolved around terms such as “capitalism,” “fascism,” “antifascism,” “imperialism,” and “Zionism.” Used in highly disparate ways, these terms had functions detached from their analytical meaning. Since free, controversial discourse was impossible, the terms of analytical critique that citizens were required to adopt, and that appeared in offi cial prescriptions that limited permissible debate, were adversarial, even demonizing. The critical deconstruction and analysis of their propagandistic functions are tasks that are indispensable to our proposed shi toward examining the GDR as a post–National Socialist society. Engaging in an ideological critique of terms like “fascism” and “anti- fascism” and their functions goes beyond engagement with the GDR. Neither the analytical concept of “fascism” nor the political concept of “antifascism” disappeared with the fall of the GDR. Their salient features, the “le -wing” relativization of Nazi crimes, and the demonization of Western democracies, particularly the United States and Israel, have persisted, though now under the conditions of social pluralism and the possibility of free and open debate. Recovering contemporary historical research as a method of ideological critique proves indispensable in another context. In the eyes of many oppo- nents of the German Soviet-style dictatorship, the origins and development of the SED state constitute a narrative of suff ering for the German people. Instead of critical refl ection on the continuities of German history and ties to transnational contexts, or examining links to present-day society, criticism of the SED dictatorship was sometimes imbued with a more conservative, anti-communist national revisionism and, not infrequently, with forms of anti-Americanism and antisemitism.

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This is why opponents of the SED in the (pre-unifi cation) Federal Re- public of Germany o en called for a “reversal in commemorative policy” and a shi toward a historiography that was designed less to empower responsible citizens to form their own critical judgments and more to un- derpin a form of German nationalism. The ideological critique of this his- toriography should not only focus on the past; it must remain a work in progress.

Role Models and Productive Input

Our plea for a new perspective on the GDR draws on diverse infl uences. The fi rst deserving mention is historian Helmut Eschwege. His research and writing focused on the GDR, the history of the Holocaust, and the history of the Jews in the GDR (Berg 2003: 442–447). Examining Jewish resistance to National Socialism, he criticized the antifascist tradition enshrined in the GDR’s historiography. His work, like other research on the history of the Jews in the GDR, could be published only in the Federal Republic of Germany. Some of his works have never been published at all. We drew additional inspiration from the Crises in Soviet-Style Sys- tems series, published in the 1980s (Mlynar 1982–1989). It advanced criti- cal discourse on the Soviet Union and its satellite states, and the authors involved in this project came from across Eastern Europe. Their publica- tions described the societies of Eastern Europe as examples of the shared category “Soviet-style dictatorship” on the one hand, but emphasized their disparate histories and crisis elements on the other. Another important infl uence is Schwieriges Erbe (Diffi cult heritage), an anthology published by Werner Bergmann, Rainer Erb, and Albert Licht- blau in 1995. Six years a er the fall of the Berlin Wall, authors from Aus- tria and the (new) Federal Republic of Germany outlined and compared portraits of three societies in the post-Nazi era: the GDR, Austria, and the FRG. Seldom has a more accurate treatment of the history and structure of the GDR as a post–National Socialist society been achieved.1 Historian Jeff rey Herf’s Divided Memory (1997), in which he compares the treatment of the Shoah in the FRG and the GDR, also informs this book. Although Herf has continued to publish on National Socialism and the Cold War, and has received international recognition for his research on National Socialism and antisemitism, among his books, only Divided Memory has been translated into German. We also looked to the anthology Fremde und Fremd-Sein in der DDR (Foreigners and misfi ts in the GDR; Behrends, Kuck, and Poutrus 2003). Following racist riots a er the demise of the GDR and in the 1990s, the

AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 4 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Introduction anthology’s editors asked “whether the racist, nationalist and anti- Bolshevist stereotypes of Nazi propaganda, which were undoubtedly widespread among the population, had in fact been expunged simply because of the mantra-like repetition of the GDR’s anti-fascist foundation myth” (Behrends, Kuck, and Poutrus 2003: 327). Another reference point for this project was Salomon Korn’s warning against the rise of an “equivalence mindset.”2 In 2004, Korn, pointing to the state of Saxony’s memorial policy, cautioned against the general equat- ing of National Socialism and the GDR in the commemorative culture of the new Federal Republic. Such an equation was analytically senseless, he argued, and showed a persistent need to avoid culpability. The goal was not a critical refl ection on the past but its termination. While these interventions have not yet triggered a paradigm shi in GDR studies, the rise of the popular movement PEGIDA (Patriotic Euro- peans Against the Islamization of the Occident) and the ascendant right- wing AfD party make clear that, as was true more than twenty years ago, the GDR and its political system and society cannot be detached from the history of National Socialism and present-day right-wing radicalism any more than the old and new Federal Republic can be.

New Inputs

The contributions collected here do not claim to fully fi ll the blind spots in existing research on Soviet-style dictatorships, the GDR, or its legacies. They are merely elements in a debate in the humanities about the GDR and a plea for a diff erent perspective. The starting point for this volume is not the end of the Cold War and the reunifi cation of the two German states, but the Third Reich, including its unprecedented crimes. Since 1989, the history, structure, and ideology of the SED dictator- ship have belonged to a shared postwar history. The heritage of the GDR as a post–National Socialist society has played an ambiguous role in a reunited Germany in quotidian contexts, historical research, and debates on commemorative policy. This book represents an eff ort to situate the GDR within the “major fl ows” of twentieth-century history and can be understood simply as a starting point for further research. The book’s fi rst half features essays that engage with events, people, or social structures in the GDR. Historian Ane e Leo opens with an em- pathetic portrait of the Jewish communist, folklorist, and Finno-Ugrian Wolfgang Steinitz. She describes his return to the GDR a er his time in exile with friends and colleagues. In discomfi ting detail, Leo illustrates the “trap of loyalty” that ensnared Steinitz and many of his companions.

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Their journey, following the campaign against “cosmopolitans” and emi- grants to the West in the early 1950s, ended in disillusionment and self- abnegation. Leo writes, “In constant danger of being caught between the millstones of the Cold War, pursued by the demons of the past, and cling- ing to messages of salvation for the future, there seemed to be no place for [Steinitz and his friends] in this Germany in which they could simply have lived in the present without abandoning their principles.” Chairperson of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation Ane a Kahane re- ports on “the taboo of antisemitism,” picking up on Ane e Leo’s story. Kah- ane recounts her parents’ return from the resistance in France and her own never entirely successful a empt, following the anti-Zionist/antisemitic purges of the 1950s, to embrace her Jewish identity and at the same time conceal it. Writing about the hidden history of Jewish communists in the GDR, Kahane says,

According to the logic of class struggle in the GDR, anyone who believed in God was a Jew. And anyone who did this voluntarily renounced the en- lightened spirit of historical materialism. This meant that this person was regarded as reactionary, since religions were presumed to always sup- press and manipulate the masses. The reduction of Jewish identity to reli- gious faith not only demonstrated catastrophic ignorance but also served above all to exonerate the German working class, which had acclaimed the Nazis, thus becoming complicit in their crimes. The communists ex- plained the seduction by Hitler almost exclusively in terms of economic and social factors, like mass unemployment. This explanatory model has served as a justifi cation for right-wing extremist or right-wing populist movements up until the present.

Historian Gerd Kühling, a staff member at the Wannsee Conference Memorial, examines the beginnings of the GDR from yet another vantage point. He analyzes the rise of divergent commemorative cultures in East and West Germany, exemplifi ed by new divisions in the city of Berlin. The instrumentalization of National Socialism for the reciprocal delegitimation of the two German states began early on. The discourse on the victims of National Socialism and forms of memorialization was crushed between the fronts of the Cold War. Historian and political scientist Enrico Heitzer, a staff member at the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum, adopts a diff erent perspective. He describes “systemic opposition from the right,” not only in the initial phase of the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR but also up until the GDR’s demise. Until now, this phenomenon has been poorly documented. Re- searchers have hardly pursued the traces of this systemic opposition, which existed from the beginning to the end of the GDR, presumably

AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 6 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Introduction not least because the SED a empted to discredit its opponents as Nazis. Against the backdrop of this defamatory propaganda, researchers have largely overlooked opposition to the system from the right. Historian and lawyer Klaus Bästlein, for many years an assistant to Berlin’s commissioner for reappraisal of the SED dictatorship, examines the GDR’s most infamous political trial: the proceedings against Hans Globke, Konrad Adenauer’s senior advisor and the former author of the Nazi race laws. Bästlein shows that despite its utility for SED propaganda, the verdict against Globke (in contrast to other trials against prominent National Socialists) refl ected knowledge that was available at the time concerning the extermination of the Jews, and Globke’s role in it. He writes, “In contrast to the propagandistic exploitation of the proceedings, no objection can be raised to the verdict reached by the Supreme Court of the GDR. The only problematic aspect is the depiction of the GDR as the ‘be er’ (‘antifascist’) German state.” Christoph Classen, a long-serving staff member at the Center for Contemporary Historical Research, investigates the origins of the GDR’s antifascist foundation myth and its signifi cance for engaging with the GDR in the reunited Federal Republic. A er 1989, alongside criticism and support for antifascism, controversy emerged regarding the political meanings of the reunited Federal Republic. Classen writes,

One of the issues addressed here is the recent controversy between con- servatives and le -wing liberals in the so-called Historikerstreit about how the anti-totalitarian foundation consensus of the old Federal Republic should be viewed. A er the collapse of the communist bloc and amid fears of a resurgent Germany in the center of Europe, the political con- troversy over whether anti-communist or anti-National Socialist identity should constitute the main reference point for Germany entered a second phase under changed conditions.

Political scientist Helmut Müller-Enbergs, an expert on East German secret police documents, presents “empirical social research on a highly in- visible group” in his contribution. Employing empirical evidence, Müller- Enbergs shows that the Ministry of State Security (MfS), in contrast to the secret services of the FRG, did not have ex–National Socialists on its permanent staff , though some of its informers were in fact former Nazis. Contrary to expectations, says Müller-Enbergs, professional spies tended to come from the upper echelons of the GDR’s social hierarchy rather than from the purportedly preeminent working class. Historian Jeff rey Herf, professor of modern European history at the University of Maryland, shares an essay that off ers an overview of his book, Undeclared Wars with Israel, which was published in English. Draw-

AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 7 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Ane a Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus ing on archival documents from the GDR, he follows a path from the expul- sion of Jews from the GDR in the early 1950s to support for Arab countries and the PLO in the war to destroy Israel. Citing recently deceased Robert Wistrich, Herf analyzes the ideology of the SED as “Holocaust Inversion.” Former comrades in the war against the Nazis were declared enemies of socialism, and in the case of Israel, warred upon. Agnes C. Mueller, professor of German and comparative studies at the University of South Carolina, examines the relationship between lit- erature in the GDR and popular engagement with the Holocaust as ex- emplifi ed by Christa Wolf and Fred Wander. Mueller explains her essay:

Holocaust trauma, Jewish identity, and the guilt of the perpetrators are allegedly spotlighted in Wolf’s fi ctional and essayistic work, but in fact are glossed over in terms of their relevance for future generations. The emotionalizing strategies displayed in Wolf’s texts, some of which utilize the literary theories of socialist realism, are then contrasted with those featured in the work of Fred Wander. He provides explicit descriptions of camp experiences, unmediated in their directness and aff ective impact, whereas in Wolf’s works, the fi gures, themes, and motifs concerned are more profoundly encoded.

Historian Katharina Lenski directs the Thuringian Ma hias Domaschk Archives for Contemporary History, which she established in 1991. Today, she is a research associate at Jena University. Her contribution examines the stigmatization of political dissidents and young people searching for new lifestyles in the GDR. Her text focuses on a hitherto almost unknown public hair-cu ing initiative in the Thuringian town of Pössneck in Octo- ber 1969. Lenski writes,

The practice displays elements reminiscent of the Nazi era. Though the context of exclusion had changed, certain elements survived the 1945 “zero hour.” Compulsory haircu ing was one of several disciplinary ele- ments designed to punish nonconforming lifestyles. Labeling someone as “anti-social” was a simple (though spurious) solution. Using existing laws and their subordinate institutions, an exclusionary force was estab- lished in the GDR.

The contribution by sociologist Christiane Leidinger and education scholar Heike Radvan investigates the rarely addressed issue of lesbians and gays in the GDR. Focusing on self-organizing activities, which began in the 1970s, and on a empts to memorialize lesbian and gay victims of National Socialism, Leidinger and Radvan show how these initiatives con- tradicted the one-sided offi cial commemoration of the communist resis- tance. Lesbians and gays were placed under surveillance and encountered

AFTER AUSCHWITZ – 8 – The Difficult Legacies of the GDR Edited by Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Anetta Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HeitzerAfter Introduction numerous obstacles. As shown by these initiatives, the authors examine how self-organizing activity had a democratizing eff ect. This contribution concludes by asking why lesbian and gay commemorative activities have gone largely unmentioned in public discourse, even until the present. Ingrid Be wieser, a staff member of the Ravensbrück Memorial, and Tobias von Borcke, a project executive in the Berlin offi ce of the Docu- mentation and Cultural Center for German Sinti and Roma, address an- other important and neglected subject. Turning to Sinti and Roma, their contribution draws on empirical research that examines perceptions of minorities in Neues Deutschland, the leading SED daily. Given the scarcity of available publications, the authors use the newspaper to analyze the history of Sinti and Roma in the GDR. Their verdict:

Disparate as the GDR and the FRG were, in terms of societal dealings with the Nazi genocide of Sinti and Roma and the continuation of antiziganism, the parallels are signifi cant. In neither of these two states were these is- sues appropriately addressed, while survivors were subjected to renewed reprisals. Whereas in the GDR there was exigent pressure to conform, in the FRG, Sinti and Roma were in many cases socially marginalized.

Historian Martin Jander, a participant on the SED State Research Team at Berlin’s Free University for many years and now a lecturer in various programs at American universities in Berlin, grapples with the relationship of le -wing and Christian GDR opposition to the “universalization” of German culpability during the collapse of the GDR in his essay. He shows that only small segments of the GDR’s opposition— mostly around Helmut Eschwege and Lothar Kreyssig—were able to criticize the SED’s antifascism, which was frequently imbued with anti- semitism. Most looked to role models who reproduced an antifascism that relativized German culpability. Yet there were some courageous individuals on the fringes of the GDR’s le -wing and Christian groups, particularly from circles around the Reconciliation Initiative and the Jewish Cultural Association, which in 1989/90 were able to break with the GDR’s position: an “antifascism without Jews” that “universalized” German culpability. The second half of this book contains essays that off er a critical as- sessment of the reappraisal of the GDR in the reunited Federal Republic. This part of the anthology opens with the award-winning author Regina Scheer. In her essay, she refl ects on the experience of interviewing di- verse individuals from the GDR and gathering life stories from the fi ve new federal states of reunited Germany. Her verdict: “It almost seems to be a law of human society that some things can only be expressed once the grandchildren have arrived. But the grandchildren, too, will become

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mothers and fathers. I believe we should be asking ourselves about guilt and responsibility, not those who preceded us. And to understand our own history, we need to listen to those who came before us. Not least to the silences between the words.” Günter Morsch has been the head of the Sachsenhausen Memorial and Museum and director of the Brandenburg Memorials Foundation. His contribution wrestles with the return of the totalitarianism paradigm in analyses of National Socialism and communism in Europe. In “many European countries, a stronger impulse has emerged . . . to unite disparate commemorative cultures with a new policy based on a shared European master narrative, and thus to instrumentalize the past for present-day political goals much more emphatically and unambiguously than before.” With the end of the Cold War, a “commemoration boom” took place in Europe. Alongside it, an “interpretation ba le” was triggered. “The old adversarial images are wheeled out, . . . victimhood competitions are unleashed, parties and governments transmute resurging resentments into ‘policies for remembrance and reappraisal of the past.’” History is weaponized, and in extreme cases, such as the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, the weapons have been lethal. Carola Rudnick, who leads the redesign of the Euthanasia Memorial in Lüneburg, elucidates the eff ects of memorial policy in her essay on the GDR’s historical sites in the context of the reunited Federal Republic’s re- appraisals of the Nazi era. Her fi ndings come as a positive surprise. Only with the reappraisal of the Soviet Occupation Zone and the GDR in two Commissions of Inquiry set up by the Bundestag, and associated govern- ment subsidies for reappraisal initiatives—and with the former central commemorative monuments of the GDR—did support for concentration camp memorials as a whole become possible. Only then did Nazi memori- als from the old FRG come to enjoy support from the federal government. The political crisis of legitimation for memorials in Germany, she writes, has been largely resolved, even if confl icts persist. The causes and origins of ethnically based racist movements, which have shown renewed vigor everywhere, but especially in the fi ve states of eastern Germany, is a particular source of controversy in the reunited Federal Republic. In her essay, Ane a Kahane, founder and chairperson of the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, shows that while the strength of these movements in the fi ve new states of reunited Germany is by no means a mystery, scholars have yet to analyze conditions in the GDR with suf- fi cient precision. As she explains,

In almost every reference cited nowadays in debates on the GDR, one thing above all is missing: the fact that it was itself a product of the war,

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the Shoah, and postwar history. That the GDR would not have existed without Auschwitz and that without the war of extermination unleashed by Germans, Europe would have looked diff erent and sixty million lives could have been saved seem to have lost their perceived relevance. As a reference point, the crimes commi ed by Germans have disappeared, just as the ethnic dimension gradually assumes the mantle of normalcy.

Historian Jeff rey Herf from the University of Maryland describes in a short essay how his books Divided Memory (1997) and Undeclared Wars with Israel (2016) were received in Germany. As a consequence of the Holocaust, research on Jewish issues in Germany is o en wri en by authors who do not live in Germany. However, since the declaration of the GDR’s fi rst freely elected parliament on 12 April 1990, the subject of antisemitic domestic and foreign policy in the GDR has reached ever wider circles. It has not remained a topic only for academic researchers. In a personal retrospective, Patrice G. Poutrus, a historian and re- search fellow of the University of Erfurt, deals with his own a empts and those of some of his colleagues to create a solid academic foundation for public debate on migration and xenophobia in the GDR. Poutrus also illuminates the early history of the Soviet Occupation Zone/GDR. Anti- fascists returning from exile were stigmatized as “misfi ts,” as were “con- tract workers” who were subsequently recruited to the GDR from many socialist countries. A somewhat diff erent perspective on this issue emerges in the contri- bution from political scientist Raiko Hannemann. His research project at Berlin’s Alice Salomon University of Applied Sciences is titled Undemo- cratic Mindsets in Common: The Example of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. It examines opposition and resistance in the GDR and its role in the devel- opment of democracy in the reunited Federal Republic. In his essay here, Hannemann fi rst emphasizes the dearth of research on opposition to the system from the right. Second, he calls a ention to shortcomings in the research on the origins of the GDR’s pro-democracy movement. He a ri- butes both failures to the totalitarianism paradigm that has guided much of the research on opposition. Questions regarding resistance activities within the framework of an industrial society, which emerged as part of GDR-related research in the pre-unifi cation Federal Republic, he writes, have been taboo since the upheaval of 1989/90. The book concludes with an essay by Daniela Blei, a historian, editor, and writer based in San Francisco, California. She visited Berlin for the fi rst time as an undergraduate in the 1990s and has observed the city’s commemorative culture ever since. Her essay explores the origins and evolution of the Freedom and Unifi cation Monument. Blei establishes

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that the monument in no way originated from a broad societal discus- sion, like the Stolpersteine (Stumbling Stones) and other memorials in Ber- lin. Instead, four men conceived the memorial, and, rather than seeking public support, they sought to persuade infl uential politicians and parlia- ment. This was presumably why the public failed to perceive that parlia- ment’s crucial decision to greenlight the monument was by no means just about honoring the peaceful revolutionaries of 1989, says Blei. Instead, the monument off ers a metaphysical view of history based on the notion that anti-democratic German traditions were “canceled out” by the up- heaval of 1989. Blei’s verdict: the initiators of the Freedom and Unifi cation Monument “can be accused of advancing the old endeavors of conserva- tives to relativize the Nazi past.” At the same time, she strikes a positive note. More impressive than the monument is the “silence that surrounds it.” The monument will likely “fade into irrelevance” and unintentionally “serve as a lasting reminder that German history is a long way from being over and that unifi cation can never be perfect.”

Acknowledgments

Much of the research in this book was discussed during a workshop in Berlin in January 2017. Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, and Ane a Kahane shared additional research as part of the Annual Conference of the Ger- man Studies Association in Atlanta in the autumn of 2017, while Patrice G. Poutrus presented his fi ndings in October 2014 at a forum of the Cath- olic University of America in Washington, DC. Jeff rey Herf presented work related to both of his essays during workshops of the Amadeu An- tonio Foundation in Berlin—the fi rst one in January 2017, the second one in January 2020. Some of the authors represented in this book were ap- proached by the editors. All authors were requested to present a contri- bution of their choice that focused on how the GDR addressed National Socialism and how the reunited Federal Republic has wrestled with the GDR and its legacies. We thank all of the authors involved in this proj- ect, and hope that they fi nd the book as successful as we do. Our special “thank you” for this publication goes to Daniela Blei, who edited all the articles for this publication. Without the help of Miriamne Fields, Alan Johnson, Martina Jones, Anthony Hood, Marian Koebner, and Daniela Blei, who translated some of the articles from German into English, this edition of our book would not have been possible. We are delighted that this book is published by Berghahn Books. The German version, Na Aus witz: S wieriges Erbe DDR, was published in 2018 by Wo ens au Verlag.

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Enrico Heitzer, born in 1977 in Altenburg in Thuringia, was with the Bundeswehr from 1996 to 1998. Beginning in 1998, he studied history and political science in Potsdam and Halle. From 2005 to 2007, he held a scholarship from the Graduate Program of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. In 2007, he received a doctoral scholarship from the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC. In 2007/8 he worked as a research assistant for the Chair of Modern History at the Martin Luther University Halle- Wi enberg. Since 2005, he has been an associate doctoral student at the Center for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam (ZZF) and, since 2010–12, has worked as a research assistant at the Berlin Wall Foundation. Today he is a research assistant at the Sachsenhausen Memorial and the Museum Sachsenhausen/Sti ung Brandenburgische Gedenkstä en. In addition to his exhibition activities, his research interests include the end of the World War II and the early Cold War, denazifi cation, the history of opposition and resistance in the SBZ/GDR, and the politics and culture of remembrance. His publications include Die Kampfgruppe gegen Unmens - li keit (KgU): Widerstand und Spionage im Kalten Krieg 1948–1959 (volume 53 in the series Zeithistoris e Studien by Böhlau-Verlag, 2015); and with Günter Morsch, Robert Traba, and Katarzyna Woniak, Im S a en von Nürnberg: Transnationale Ahndung von NS-Verbre en (In the shadow of Nuremberg: Transnational persecution of Nazi crimes, volume 25 in the series Fors ungsbeiträge und Materialien der Sti ung Brandenburgis e Gedenkstä en by Metropol Verlag, 2019).

Martin Jander, born in 1955 in Freiburg, is a historian, lecturer, and jour- nalist and teaches German and European history at Stanford University (Berlin), New York University (Berlin), and in the Freie Universität Ber- lin European Studies Program. He completed his dissertation in 1995 on “Formation and Crisis of the GDR Opposition” at the O o Suhr In- stitute of the Freie Universität Berlin. Until 2017, he chronicled le -wing terrorism, a project sponsored by the Hamburg Foundation for the Ad- vancement of Science and Culture, some of which has been published. In addition to his teaching and research, Jander works as an adult educator in the trade unions, produces teaching materials for school curricula, and off ers guided tours of Berlin and Potsdam (www.unwrapping-history.de). His most recent publication, with Enrico Heitzer, Martin Jander, Ane a Kahane, and Patrice G. Poutrus (eds.), is Nach Auschwitz: Schwieriges Erbe DDR (Frankfurt, 2018).

Anetta Kahane, born in 1954 in East Berlin, is a German journalist and author. She holds a degree in Latin American Studies and has worked as a translator. In 1990, she was the fi rst commissioner for foreigners of

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Patrice G. Poutrus, born in 1961 in East Berlin, is a historian and migration researcher. He is currently a research assistant at the University of Erfurt. He received his doctorate in 2001 from the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder, and subsequently conducted research at the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC, the Center for Contemporary Historical Research in Potsdam, the Simon Wiesenthal Institute for Holocaust Studies in Vienna, and the Institute for Contemporary History at the University of Vienna. He is a member of the DFG research network Grundlagen der Flüchtlingsforschung. His book Umkämp es Asyl. Vom Nachkriegsdeutschland bis in die Gegenwart was published in spring 2019.

Notes 1. See one work that adopts a similar approach: Herz 1997. 2. See the term in “Press Release from the Central Council of Jews in Germany,” 21 January 2004 (Bibliothek der Jüdis en Gemeinde zu Berlin, Berlin).

References Amadeu Antonio Foundation, ed. 2010. “Das hat es bei uns ni t gegeben” – Antisemitismus in der DDR. Berlin. Behrends, Jan C., Dennis Kuck, and Patrice G. Poutrus. 2003. “Historis e Ursa en der Frem- denfeindli keit in den Neuen Bundesländern.” In Fremde und Fremd-Sein in der DDR, edited by Jan C. Behrends, 301–307. Berlin.

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Berg, Nikolaus. 2003. Der Holocaust und die westdeuts en Historiker. Erfors ung und Erinne- rung. Gö ingen. Bergmann, Werner, Rainer Erb, and Albert Li tblau, eds. 1995. S wieriges Erbe. Der Umgang mit Nationalsozialismus und Antisemitismus in Österrei , der DDR und der Bundesrepublik Deuts land. Frankfurt. Herf, Jeff rey. 1997. Divided Memory. Cambridge. Herz, Thomas A. 1997. “NS-Vergangenheit contra SED-Vergangenheit.” In Umkämp e Ver- gangenheit: Diskurse über den Nationalsozialismus seit 1945, edited by Mi ael S wab- Trapp and Thomas A. Herz, 264–286. Opladen. Mlynar, Zdenek, eds. 1982–1989. Krisen in den Systemen sowjetis en Typs. Vienna.

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